


Breaking Down

by Hello_Spikey



Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer (TV)
Genre: Human/Vampire Relationship, M/M, Master/Pet
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-11-18
Updated: 2010-11-18
Packaged: 2019-09-12 18:18:13
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 11,590
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16877853
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hello_Spikey/pseuds/Hello_Spikey
Summary: Riley is ready to bring a pet home, but he'll have to get permission from Buffy.





	1. Housebreaking

**Author's Note:**

  * For [sueworld2003](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=sueworld2003).



> The Initiative never was taken down, the Adam stuff never happened, Buffy and Riley never broke up. There is a tiny bitty hint of off-camera Buffy/Riley in this. Also some hints of non-con, torture, the usual. ;)

It really wasn’t Riley’s kind of thing. Sure, he joined in the jokes and cracks they made about the vampires, who didn’t? And yeah, he knew that most of the guys who took a vampire home to keep didn’t just have them vacuuming for them. He wasn’t naïve. And maybe a little cruelty was okay, if it underscored the inhumanity of their prey. It helped their men sleep well at night, knowing that nothing living, nothing with feelings, had been hurt.

But then he found 17, left in the training room, again. Purple bruises and smears of blood marked his pale skin. The long smear on the floor showed how far 17 had dragged himself, from the pommel horse nearly all the way to the door, where he’d collapsed again, the top shoulder obviously dislocated. What was it about the little guy that brought out the sadist in men? Riley sighed heavily and bent to grab 17 by his shoulder. The vampire turned on him with a snarl. Right. That was it. Riley hoisted the vampire to his feet. “You have got to be the slowest learner in the universe. Fighting back isn’t doing anything for you. Come on, let’s get you to the infirmary.”

The vampire couldn’t walk, and after two stumbles, Riley just carried him. He could tell this hurt 17’s pride, by the way he turned his head as far away as he could and stared blankly. It wasn’t right, how 17 got singled out. Riley knew there was only one way to protect him, and it made his stomach clench. It really wasn’t his kind of thing.

***

Maggie Walsh raised an eyebrow. “You’ve never expressed an interest in taking one home, before.”

Riley felt his fingers wanting to fidget. He clasped his hands behind him. “I never expressed it, no, but I have had an interest.”

“Well, of course, you’ve long earned the privilege. In fact, I’m relieved. Is it one of the new acquisitions?”

“Uh… no, ma’am. I’d like 17.”

Maggie narrowed her eyes. “And where is 17 at this moment?”

Riley knew lying would do him no good at all. “The infirmary.”

“This isn’t more of your misguided sympathy for the creatures, is it?”

“No ma’am,” he assured her carefully, hoping she couldn’t sense the tension in his shoulders, his sweating hands. “I’m just tired of sharing.”

Maggie’s lips curled slightly, and he knew he’d chosen the right tactic. “Permission granted.” She went back to scanning the report on her desk. “You can take it as soon as it is cleared for active duty again.”

“But that could take…” Riley stopped as Maggie glanced up. He bit his lip. “Right. Of course. Thank you, ma’am.”

Riley felt the tension leave him as he quickly left Maggie’s office. The hard part was over. Yeah, 17 would have to suffer a bit longer – he didn’t often make it to full recovery before being injured again – but at least he’d be taken out of there, eventually.

The hard part was over. Now Riley just needed to tell his wife. He grimaced.

***

Buffy’s face was bathed in the blue light of her computer monitor, and slack with the childlike mesmerism of someone in deep communion with the internet. Riley sighed and knocked on the doorjamb beside him.

Buffy snapped up. “Oh! Riley!” She stretched back, reaching for him. He gratefully closed the distance and hugged her around the back of her chair while she ruffled his hair.

“I thought you were in Cleveland for another week,” Riley said.

“Nah. Found the monster, killed it, used my elite status to bump to an earlier return flight.” Buffy made a face. “How unfair is it that almost all my frequent flier miles are to Cleveland?”

“At least the council has stopped trying to force you to move there.”

Buffy shrugged and reached for the keyboard without letting go of Riley. “Dawn sent new pictures from Princeton.”

“That’s great,” Riley said. And then, in a voice so forced it sounded like dragging concrete, he asked, “Say, what do you think about getting a pet?”

Buffy slipped out of his grasp and turned to face him with a very stern look.

Riley backed up. “What?”

“If this was about a dog, you wouldn’t sound like that.”

“Like what?”

“Guilty.”

Riley did feel guilty. He wrung his hands and tried to find someplace else to look than Buffy’s steady frown. “It’s just cruel, Buffy. Nobody should have to suffer like that.”

Her shoulders dropped. “A vampire. I knew it. How many times do we have to do this?”

“But this time I have permission.”

“No. I don’t want one of those things in my house. It’s bad enough you guys use them to hunt other demons instead of killing them.”

Riley rolled his eyes. “But that allows you to have a fabulous, jet-setting lifestyle, fighting the supernatural around the globe.”

“You’re not making me laugh so soon after a week in the Day’s Inn.” She punched him playfully in the arm. It still hurt, but he always pretended it didn’t.

Riley followed her into the kitchen. “You won’t even know he’s here.”

“Slayer senses, anyone?” Buffy picked up the tea kettle and filled it at the sink. “Anyway, what would we even use a vampire around the house for? I start to think about it and all I get is ‘ew’.”

“I’ll find something for him to do. Buffy, you should see the way they treat this hostile. He’s… well, he’s been a discipline problem, and…”

“Oh, so selling me on this.” Buffy set the kettle on.

“He just has spirit, that’s all. Is that a crime? Should that be punished again and again until someone breaks protocol and dusts him?”

Buffy leaned back against the counter, giving him a pout. “You should just leave the initiative.”

“Buffy…”

She held up her hands. “I can’t believe you’re asking me to take in a vampire like it’s a lost puppy.”

“If you could see…”

“I don’t want to.” She sighed and rubbed her eyes. “Okay. Okay, you have permission and all that… we’ll… try it out, I guess.”

Riley stepped forward to hug her, but she pushed him back. “You won’t regret this.”

“I already do. If it tries to eat someone, the chip malfunctions, or… or god, if it pees on the carpet, I’m dusting it.”

“Believe me, that would be humane.”

Buffy scowled again, and he feared the whole “leave the initiative” argument was going to start again, so he kissed her and said, “How about I make us something to eat?”

She smiled. “Evil man, placating me with your ability to fry.”

Buffy made her tea and Riley made cheese sandwiches, and they were a happy, comfortable couple again.

But the next part – actually bringing 17 home – that was going to be the real challenge, Riley realized, and so he didn’t have much appetite for his sandwich.

***

Spike watched his bare feet slapping the treadmill under him. His wrists were cuffed to the bar at the front of the machine. This was the Initiative’s idea of physical therapy – chain you to a treadmill and make you run all-out for hours. His only goal was not to lose his footing and end up dragging. Christ, but that hurt. So he kept his feet swinging forward, head hanging down to watch because there was nothing else to do.

They liked him tired out. Sick bastards. He was getting enough exercise, ta very much, just trying to keep the trainer’s hands off him. Never mind the extra-curricular ‘punishments’.

He didn’t’ know how long he’d been running, but he was reaching the point where he couldn’t feel anything from the waist down and his legs flopped and rolled in strange ways, his feet hitting sometimes on their tops, their sides. It was about time for one of the sick fucks to abruptly cut off the treadmill and laugh as he crashed helplessly.

Or they’d forgotten again and soon he would have no choice but to let his legs get abraded as he hung from his bloody wrists.

He recovered from a stumble and was just about convinced he wouldn’t make it past another when, to his surprise, the treadmill gradually slowed to a stop.

He leaned his arms, and as much of his weight as he could, on the support bar.

“Get some clothes on him,” an irritated voice said.

“Come on, Riley, why? He’ll only get ‘em dirty.”

“Just do it.”

Rough hands pushed Spike out of the way and undid the handcuffs. His legs instantly folded like limp spaghetti.

Now it would start. He picked himself up on his arms, prepared to crawl away if that was his only option.

Pale blue, thin fabric hit him in the face. “You heard the man, 17. Get dressed.”

It had been months since they’d last let him put on the skimpy scrubs they let the ‘hostiles’ wear when their own clothes had been destroyed, or just taken. His hands shook and he tried not to feel grateful as he hurriedly pulled them on. He had trouble with the pants as his legs wouldn’t do what he wanted them to, but at last he got them on.

The man standing over him when he looked up was none other than Riley Finn, who he knew was a higher-ranking soldier, and a bit of a softy. Still, high rank didn’t mean good news. He hoped he wasn’t being taken in for surgery again.

Riley squatted to look him in the eye. “I’m taking you out of here, 17. Out of the base. Behave yourself, and you never have to come back.”

Spike looked at the leash Riley held and sneered. The bastard had better not expect him to be grateful.

Riley turned toward the trainer. “Can’t he talk?”

“Are you kidding? This is one hostile we make sure never misses his vocal cord cutting appointment.”

Riley reached for Spike’s throat. Spike jerked back and snarled at him. Riley frowned. “How long ago was the procedure?”

“You seriously want to talk to that thing?”

“Just answer the question, corporal.”

“Dude, I don’t know. Check the logs. It always heals too damn fast, anyway. I can tell you all it’ll say. It’s all ‘bloody hell!’ and ‘shagging wankers!’” The corporal spoke in a falsetto reminiscent of a Monty Python drag performance. Spike barred his teeth at the wanker.

Riley reached for Spike’s throat again. Spike jerked away, got caught, and struggled, resulting in a chip shock when he banged Riley with his elbow.

Blinking stars, he had no choice but to lie there and feel the collar snap shut.

Riley helped him to his feet, and supported him with an arm around his waist. Not that Spike was asking the over-sized boy scout to do any such thing. Spike slipped his arm the first chance he got, but he only fell to the ground and was quickly gathered up again. Time was he could make it take all day for the wankers to get him from his cell to the training room. Defeated, he just let the loser carry him the rest of the way.

Outside air. He stirred, in shock, hope and memory at the feel and smell of it. Maybe this wasn’t going to be so bad, after all.

“That’s it, boy,” Riley said in a soothing voice as Spike lifted his head to smell the wind coming form the exit.

Spike turned and scowled at Riley. Oh, bugger THAT.

***

The car ride was nice. He did not stick his head out the window like a sodding poodle.

He just really liked the smell of the air, all right?

They pulled up to a quiet suburban home and Spike detected something odd in the air. Something… tasty but worrying. Like a t-bone steak guarded by a rottweiler.

Riley led him out of the car and up to the back porch. A woman stood there, framed in the golden light from the kitchen, her arms crossed and a wooden stake visible in the crook of one elbow.

Spike said, “Oh bloody hell,” but of course no sound came out.

“Spike?” Buffy said. She uncrossed her arms and pointed with her stake. “The vampire you wanted to bring home and… and nurture is SPIKE?”

Riley looked from Spike, who was suddenly very alert, very tense and straining the leash, back to Buffy, “You know each other?”

Buffy rolled her eyes and then turned her back on them. “Don’t you have any vampires who didn’t try to kill me in high school?”

Spike could tell Buffy had given in – and wasn’t it pathetic she wasn’t even a little afraid of him? – but soldier-boy had to drag him after her.

“Is this awkward? I wouldn’t have brought him home if I knew you knew him. I mean… tried to kill you?”

“They’re vampires, Riley, it’s what they do.”

“Don’t condescend like that. You and I both know there’s a difference, emotionally, between vampires in general and one you’ve been attacked by.”

Spike tried, desperately, to get away from the quarreling couple, but the leash was strong, and the chip shocked him for resisting it. He clawed at the floor to pull himself away and just collapsed.

The arguing fell away and he felt a tiny hand on his shoulder. “He’s not really the Spike I knew, anymore.”

“Heh. He’s kinda cute, isn’t he?”

Buffy wrinkled her nose. “I hate his hair.”

I hate you both, Spike thought, and when I get this chip out of my head I will feast on your entrails.

For now, he had to put up with them discussing his sodding hair color (“It’s not like I adored the radioactive blonde look, but the natural brown washes out his features”) as they alternately herded and pushed him into the basement, where he was shackled.

“Sorry, 17, we can’t exactly let you run free,” Riley said as Spike mutely listed adjectives to describe him. “Tomorrow I’ll set the chip to the perimeter of the house.”

Riley must have sensed the thick sarcasm in Spike’s mental reply, because he shrugged apologetically and patted Spike’s bare ankle above the metal shackle.

Spike sneered at him. One soldier boy and a slayer? This would be a cakewalk.

Three days later, Spike had to reassess his opinion. Riley was patient and careful and always seemed to know when Spike was planning something.

At first Spike managed to stubbornly refuse to do the light tasks Riley planned for him – like loading the washing or pulling weeds at night in the garden. (The chip was wired to shock him unconscious if he stepped over the property line, which, he discovered to his annoyance, didn’t extend to the back fence. Fucking suburban zoning.)

When he rebelled by pulling up all the flowers and bushes and leaving the weeds, Riley didn’t punish him, didn’t say anything, just sighed heavily and brought him in for clean-up, a bag of blood, and another boring day locked in the basement.

He didn’t get to pull weeds again for a week, and found himself annoyingly wanting to apologize so he could go outside again. He had enjoyed the small violence of pulling plants up from their roots, the spraying dirt, the smell of outdoor air.

He couldn’t believe, after all those years of torment and abuse he was falling victim to stern kindness.

In the Initiative, he’d been shocked every time he so much as touched his own dick, but he had a hunch Riley had disabled that protocol, and after a very tentative confirmation of that, Spike worked hard to time his wanking so that Riley would come into the basement just as he climaxed.

The first time, Spike about howled with triumph, sure he was going to get a reaction. Riley didn’t even blink. He just stepped around the glob of jizz on the floor and unlocked the shackle as always. “Time for supper,” he said, which is what he always said. When Spike scowled at him and resisted the tug on the leash, Riley just said, “if you don’t want to eat, that’s your business.”

Spike tried being more elaborate about it. At last, he was sprawled in a pose that was somewhat uncomfortable, one hand up his ass, the other stroking his cock, his back bent off the bed, humping at the air. He turned his head and licked his lips as Riley came down the stairs.

Riley stopped in the middle of the room and sighed. “You aren’t showing me anything I haven’t seen before, you know.”

Spike sagged a little in disappointment, but then redoubled his efforts, lifting his hips as far as they could go, then twisting, grinding his shoulders into the flimsy cot.

Riley put his large, warm hand on Spike’s stomach and pressed gently down. “Stop that. You’re going to break the bed.”

Spike waggled his eyebrows and licked his lips.

Riley put both his hands on Spike’s abdomen and pressed down hard. When Spike resisted the chip fired, and soon he was flat on the cot, his cock at half-mast from the pain, his right arm pinned underneath him at an awkward angle.

“I grew up on a cattle ranch,” Riley said. “If you think you’re more bull-headed than a bull, think again.”

Then Riley turned on his heel and calmly walked out of the basement.

Spike pulled his arm free from under himself and sighed in resignation. It seemed like nothing would shake Riley up. And if he couldn’t shake the man’s calm, he couldn’t find a weakness to exploit and escape.

Then, subtle as a twist of smoke, Spike smelled the musky tang of male arousal. His lips curved in a smirk. Oh, he had something to use.

First, he had to play the good boy – which was hard as swallowing glass, but he did it. Had to lure them into a false security. He could tell Riley knew he was up to something the next morning when he meekly got to his feet and held still for the unshackling, and then didn’t immediately wander off and start messing things up.

It was very hard, but he managed to get through the whole day, behaving himself. The ‘he can’t possibly cause trouble doing this’ task of the day was vacuuming, which he found particularly emasculating, and, beside the point, he could think of lots of ways to destroy stuff while pushing around a heavy sucking machine, but he bit his lip and just did the task.

Riley still looked like he was waiting for the other shoe to fall when he took Spike back down to the basement, but Spike bided his time and just let his bare arm brush against Riley’s. Riley paused, and Spike worried he hadn’t been casual enough about it, but then Riley just left.

Rome wasn’t seduced in a day, Spike reminded himself, and set about planning. Having a plan made him feel more free, even as the chains clanked as his foot moved restlessly.

***

The third time Spike “casually” bumped into him while loading the dishwasher, Riley grabbed his arm and dragged him to the far wall. He glanced briefly toward the living room, to make sure Buffy wasn’t around, and then growled, “Stop it. I know what you’re doing and it isn’t going to work.”

Spike batted his eyelashes in a faux innocence so fake it was dirty. And then he ground his hips up against Riley. Riley’s eyelashes fluttered, briefly. Spike grinned in triumph, the tip of his pink tongue peeking out. Riley slammed him harder into the wall. He was breathing hard, their faces just an inch apart.

“Hey, what’s going on?” Buffy called from the next room.

Riley jumped back from Spike, awkwardly. He dropped a hand over his bulging jeans. “N-nothing. Just sev– Spike acting up.”

Buffy strolled in, snagged a banana from the fruit bowl, and gave Spike a significant look while gripping the banana like a stake. “I can _so_ take care of that for you, honey.”

Spike continued to smirk in triumph. Riley pretended to be interested in the fruit bowl as well. “Nothing stake-worthy. Yet.”

“Well, you just let me know when it gets to that point.” Buffy mimed stabbing with the banana. Spike gave her a scowl and she smiled, bouncing off to the living room again.

Riley smacked him, open handed. Spike blinked in surprise.

“Do you want to end up dust? Is that it?”

Spike scowled in response.

Riley slammed the dishwasher shut, then turned back to him, frowning. “You should be able to talk by now.”

Another faux-innocent flutter of eyelashes.

Riley set his fist on his hip. “We’re not going to cut your vocal cords again. You don’t have to hide that they’ve healed.”

Spike’s throat bobbed with a long swallow. With a cough, he said, “Maybe I was saving it for a special occasion.”

“Just… give it up, Spike. This is your life now. Get used to it.”

“I won’t. I’m a vampire, not a housemaid.” Spike kicked over the mop leaning on the wall next to him, just to underscore the point.

Riley patiently picked it back up. “You’d rather go back to splitting your time between reconstructive surgery and the training room floor?”

“Heh.” Spike’s voice was still scratchy from disuse. He licked his lips. “You didn’t save me because of some misplaced farmboy morality. You’re hot for my arse.”

Riley, as if realizing how close they were standing just at that moment, moved awkwardly back. “I’m really not.”

Spike tilted his head back. “How about we ask the missus?”

“Go ahead. She’s not stupid, Spike.” Riley held open the basement door and looked pointedly at Spike until he sighed and trudged down the steps.

Spike heard Buffy and Riley argue clearly through the thin walls. Riley wanted Buffy to take more of a role with training Spike. Buffy felt he was Riley’s responsibility, since Riley had brought him into their home. Then there was some disagreement about a trip Buffy was going to take to see Dawn, and Riley wouldn’t come with because someone had to babysit the vampire.

Spike just loved being discussed like he was a troublesome terrier not quite house-trained. He loved even more when the arguing grew quiet, and then subsided into moans and groans and the rhythmic compression of bedsprings.

Spike jerked off furiously, glaring his hatred at the bare wood ceiling.

The next day, Riley didn’t speak to Spike, and only looked at him if he had to. Spike tried to use his new weapon, his voice, to best advantage. He groaned in exaggerated pleasure over his breakfast bottle of blood. He wolf-whistled when Riley bent to undo the shackle.

Riley let the chain drop with a thunk. “Since you’re so pent up, you can do yard work today.”

“Be still my unbeating heart.” Spike slipped up against Riley. “Don’t think I’m the only one ‘up’,” he said, and let his hand drop down to Riley’s crotch.

Riley shoved him back. He landed half on the cot. “Come on. We’re wasting moonlight.”

Riley tried to sound unaffected, but Spike heard the tension in his voice, and he had felt hardness under those khaki pants. Spike smiled. This was actually starting to be fun.

For three days, Spike found excuses to bend over, to brush against Riley, to stretch in almost impossible ways.

Riley paused slack-jawed when Spike pressed one leg against the wall, his head nestled comfortably beside his knee, and gave a slow wink.

Riley blinked, cleared his throat, and walked back into the house, muttering, “Stop it,” under his breath as he passed Spike.

“It’s all the bending over,” Spike called after him cheerily. “Cramps me up.”

Riley sent Buffy to take Spike back in. He cupped his groin and leered at her. She socked him in the nose and tugged him along with one tiny, super-strong hand.

Not his favorite moment of the day.

The next morning he tried something a little different. He sprawled naked on the cot, one hand behind his head, and just let the other trail up and down his bare skin. He didn’t touch his cock, though it was up and perky, used to a long tradition of morning wanks now.

When the door at the top of the stairs opened, Spike put his fingers in his mouth and laved them thoroughly. He made sure to take long enough that Riley was in the room before he drew them slowly out, and then painted his nipples with the moisture before letting his fingers slide slowly, oh so slowly, along his taut belly down toward the weeping head of his dick.

“Stop it,” Riley said.

“Or what?” asked Spike, sliding his fingers down his cock.

Riley exhaled and inhaled loudly, turned, and stomped back up the steps.

Spike laughed in victory. Then scowled, realizing he wouldn’t be getting breakfast. “Dick,” he muttered, and looked down at his own. “Ah well, waste not, want not.”

***

The days leading up to Buffy’s departure were obviously tense. Spike gleefully did all he could to make matters worse.

Buffy apparently had agreed to take care of feeding and unlocking him for a week, though he doubted Riley had said why he wanted to trade chores.

“That overgrown boy scout cannot be giving you everything you need,” Spike purred.

Buffy had walked in on his usual morning wank and threw a scratchy old army blanket over him. “Less talk, more getting dressed. I have a busy day and lots to get done.”

Spike smirked unconcernedly, but she socked him in the nose, so he decided that maybe he could play along a bit.

He balked when she brought him into the bathroom and he saw a chair set up by the sink, pink boxes and little squeeze bottles all set out. “Bugger this.”

She pushed him forward. “Relax. You like dying your hair.”

“But that’s sodding GIRL hair dye!”

Buffy rolled her eyes and used her super-strength to push him into the chair. “Stop being a big baby.”

“What color is it?” Spike looked with great trepidation at the bottle Buffy picked up.

“As far as you know?” Buffy smirked and turned on the water.

Twenty minutes later, the bathroom was a mess, they were both soaked to the skin, but Spike’s scalp was tingling with setting hair dye that could be pink for all he knew.

“It’s like bathing a cat,” Buffy complained, picking bits of hair off her shirt.

No, Spike wasn’t sad Buffy was going away for a while.

Spike tried to behave himself long enough for her to be gone. Well, mostly. The morning of her departure, he cooed to an irate Riley waiting in the living room, “Come on, mate. Go with your bird. I don’t need a sitter, do I? Lord knows I’ve been taking care of myself.” He let a hand drop to his crotch.

Riley smacked his wrist. “Can you put that thing away for five minutes?”

Spike curled his tongue behind his teeth. “Make me.”

Just then Buffy came bustling down the stairs carrying what looked like her entire wardrobe in luggage.

Riley took a step back from Spike. “Help Buffy with her bags.”

“Uh, no,” Buffy said. “Thanks, but the evil undead watchdog is not touching my things.”

It was kind of cute how she managed to hide two full sized suitcases and a valise behind her back, so Spike did the only sensible thing and grabbed for the shoulder-bag.

There ensued a tumble of cases, some swearing, and a sadly inevitable chip-firing.

“Oh, so helpful,” Buffy muttered, flicking her disarrayed hair out of her face.

Riley gave Spike a glare as he helped Buffy pick up her luggage. Spike sprawled against the lower steps with a satisfied grin.

Spike rightened himself and his clothes as Riley and Buffy said their tearful good-byes outdoors in the sunshine. He ran a hand through his loose curls and mourned, not for the first time, the lack of hair-gel afforded to vampire slaves. (He had already plucked a few hairs and found to his satisfaction that Buffy had not died them pink, but a good, proper blonde. Not that he was grateful.)

Riley returned and Spike pounced on him, wrapping his arms and legs around his thick torso. Riley dumped him on the couch. “Can you give it a rest?”

“C’mon, love. The cat’s away and all that.” Spike drew one bare foot up Riley’s leg.

Riley batted the offending foot away. “Don’t you get it? You’re my _property_.”

Spike leaned back on his elbows. “Yeah, I was in such danger of forgetting that.”

“Then why do you…” Riley groaned and started to pace. “I know, I know. You’re trying to unsettle me. You think all this inappropriate flirting will get me to make a mistake, maybe enough mistakes that you can escape.”

“Well, that, and you’re hot.” Spike shrugged.

Riley turned quickly and dropped his hands onto the couch on either side of Spike. “Is that what you want? You want to be back with the sadists who used you and abused you? To turn me into one of _them_?”

Riley’s eyes were blown with emotion, his breaths hot and quick on Spike’s face. Spike shook his head, solemnly. “Mate, you could never be one of them.”

“You don’t know me that well.”

Riley was still and taut over him, and Spike was perfectly still too, like a rabbit under a hound, but then Spike half-shrugged and relaxed back into the sofa, as though there wasn’t a larger man braced angrily over him. “It’s about power,” Spike said.

Riley straightened. “Exactly. I have all of it. That’s why we can’t – why I can’t…”

“No,” Spike smirked. “You git. It gives me some power over you, making you sweat, making you jump. Do you think I had any power over them? They didn’t even see me. I was just a hole to them.”

At the last words, Spike turned his head away slightly, jaw tightening. That small vulnerability, more than a thousand leers, made Riley’s lust rise. And, damn it, why did he have to keep doing the right thing? This vampire was here, on his couch, because he couldn’t stand watching another creature suffer. So why was he now the one to suffer?

Before he knew he was doing it, Riley was pressed down against Spike, pushing his tongue into a surprisingly receptive mouth. Those amazingly limber legs were over his shoulders and his groin was screaming at him about this annoying layer of fabric that was in the way.

He pulled back, gasping. Spike’s lips were parted and shining. Riley thrust and ground against him. “Is this what you wanted?”

“It’ll do,” Spike replied, distractedly.

Riley just didn’t care anymore what was wrong with this picture. The trousers Spike was wearing where papery thin hospital scrubs and since Riley’s dick informed him that any time spent not pressed against the body beneath him was unacceptable, he simply tore them in half before unzipping his own fly.

The head of his cock caught painfully against Spike’s dry entrance, and he had to pause, grudgingly. He quickly licked two fingers and jammed them in. If Spike minded the rough treatment, he wasn’t saying anything, just panting and watching with wide open eyes. He lifted his hips almost greedily as Riley scissored his fingers against tight muscle.

Two, three more seconds – an eternity – and Riley decided that was enough preparation. He pulled his fingers out and thrust forward. For a painful second, skin dragged against skin and it felt like he wasn’t going in, but then flesh parted. It felt like stabbing, like he had made that channel so tightly gripping him. He sank in until his hips were flush against Spike, and sighed. There was something clean about the cool temperature of the flesh, as though it wasn’t real. The deeper in, the odder that coolness was. He pulled out, the friction tugging, trying to hold him in, and plunged in again. His lips found Spike’s, slack a bit, but he kissed back after a moment.

“Is this what you wanted?” Riley repeated, thrusting hard.

Spike’s face was wrinkled with pain or concentration. “Fuck, you’re huge,” was all he said, through clenched teeth.

Riley closed his eyes on that too open stare, but that was maybe a mistake because then everything was sensation and he couldn’t stop himself from thrusting harder and faster, because each one felt better than the last, so perfect and yet just short of enough. Riley beat himself forward, would have torn his body apart for that perfection, until all too soon he was falling over the edge into an orgasm so intense it brought stars before his eyes and he didn’t even feel himself come down until he was spent, sticky and boneless, on top of something that was boney and shifting uncomfortably.

Oh, right. Spike. Riley pulled out a little too quickly and hissed at the sensation. He staggered back.

Spike kicked away the loose fragments of his trousers and laid back on the couch clad only in the loose-fitting blue scrubs shirt. His hair was tousled and his lips kiss-swollen. A long expanse of muscled belly was exposed, one hand scratching at drying sweat along the join of the thigh. He looked, in short, like innocence and sin mixed together like ice cream and hot fudge.

Riley’s stomach growled.

He tore his gaze away and nearly stumbled, legs cramped and jeans open. He quickly tucked himself away and went to the kitchen. The kitchen of his house. That he lived in with his wife, to whom he was married. And as a married man, had just fucked a vampire, angrily and violently, on the living room couch.

Riley stared a long time at the beer in his hand.

A cough sounded behind him. “You’re not brooding, are you?”

Riley turned to find Spike leaning against the door jamb, arms crossed, amused smirk in place, bare legs and cock swinging softly between them.

Riley popped open the beer and drank a long, deep draught to shake the tight, dry lump from his throat. He gasped for air and said, “This can’t happen again.”

“Aw, give it a few minutes. You’re young yet.”

Riley gave him a scathing look and reached into the fridge, pulling out another beer, which he tossed to Spike.

Spike caught it easily and popped it open. “Good boy,” he said, “I’ll get you trained, yet.”

Riley shook his head, caught between a tear and a chuckle, because he feared that was all too true.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is for **sueworld2003** , who asked: _can I have a short little tale of Spike life being Riley's 'pet' in an AU season 4 where the Initiative had won?_
> 
> Your wish is my command! Though I thought "Hey, let's take this in a different direction than usual and make Riley completely sympathetic in this."
> 
> Which then made the fic have to be longer! So I hope this still meets your wish for a 'short little tale'. :)


	2. A Broken House

It really wasn’t Riley’s kind of thing. Sure, he joined in the jokes and cracks they made about the vampires, who didn’t? And yeah, he knew that most of the guys who took a vampire home to keep didn’t just have them vacuuming for them. He wasn’t naïve. And maybe a little cruelty was okay, if it underscored the inhumanity of their prey. It helped their men sleep well at night, knowing that nothing living, nothing with feelings, had been hurt.

But then he found 17, left in the training room, again. Purple bruises and smears of blood marked his pale skin. The long smear on the floor showed how far 17 had dragged himself, from the pommel horse nearly all the way to the door, where he’d collapsed again, the top shoulder obviously dislocated. What was it about the little guy that brought out the sadist in men? Riley sighed heavily and bent to grab 17 by his shoulder. The vampire turned on him with a snarl. Right. That was it. Riley hoisted the vampire to his feet. “You have got to be the slowest learner in the universe. Fighting back isn’t doing anything for you. Come on, let’s get you to the infirmary.”

The vampire couldn’t walk, and after two stumbles, Riley just carried him. He could tell this hurt 17’s pride, by the way he turned his head as far away as he could and stared blankly. It wasn’t right, how 17 got singled out. Riley knew there was only one way to protect him, and it made his stomach clench. It really wasn’t his kind of thing.

***

Maggie Walsh raised an eyebrow. “You’ve never expressed an interest in taking one home, before.”

Riley felt his fingers wanting to fidget. He clasped his hands behind him. “I never expressed it, no, but I have had an interest.”

“Well, of course, you’ve long earned the privilege. In fact, I’m relieved. Is it one of the new acquisitions?”

“Uh… no, ma’am. I’d like 17.”

Maggie narrowed her eyes. “And where is 17 at this moment?”

Riley knew lying would do him no good at all. “The infirmary.”

“This isn’t more of your misguided sympathy for the creatures, is it?”

“No ma’am,” he assured her carefully, hoping she couldn’t sense the tension in his shoulders, his sweating hands. “I’m just tired of sharing.”

Maggie’s lips curled slightly, and he knew he’d chosen the right tactic. “Permission granted.” She went back to scanning the report on her desk. “You can take it as soon as it is cleared for active duty again.”

“But that could take…” Riley stopped as Maggie glanced up. He bit his lip. “Right. Of course. Thank you, ma’am.”

Riley felt the tension leave him as he quickly left Maggie’s office. The hard part was over. Yeah, 17 would have to suffer a bit longer – he didn’t often make it to full recovery before being injured again – but at least he’d be taken out of there, eventually.

The hard part was over. Now Riley just needed to tell his wife. He grimaced.

***

Buffy’s face was bathed in the blue light of her computer monitor, and slack with the childlike mesmerism of someone in deep communion with the internet. Riley sighed and knocked on the doorjamb beside him.

Buffy snapped up. “Oh! Riley!” She stretched back, reaching for him. He gratefully closed the distance and hugged her around the back of her chair while she ruffled his hair.

“I thought you were in Cleveland for another week,” Riley said.

“Nah. Found the monster, killed it, used my elite status to bump to an earlier return flight.” Buffy made a face. “How unfair is it that almost all my frequent flier miles are to Cleveland?”

“At least the council has stopped trying to force you to move there.”

Buffy shrugged and reached for the keyboard without letting go of Riley. “Dawn sent new pictures from Princeton.”

“That’s great,” Riley said. And then, in a voice so forced it sounded like dragging concrete, he asked, “Say, what do you think about getting a pet?”

Buffy slipped out of his grasp and turned to face him with a very stern look.

Riley backed up. “What?”

“If this was about a dog, you wouldn’t sound like that.”

“Like what?”

“Guilty.”

Riley did feel guilty. He wrung his hands and tried to find someplace else to look than Buffy’s steady frown. “It’s just cruel, Buffy. Nobody should have to suffer like that.”

Her shoulders dropped. “A vampire. I knew it. How many times do we have to do this?”

“But this time I have permission.”

“No. I don’t want one of those things in my house. It’s bad enough you guys use them to hunt other demons instead of killing them.”

Riley rolled his eyes. “But that allows you to have a fabulous, jet-setting lifestyle, fighting the supernatural around the globe.”

“You’re not making me laugh so soon after a week in the Day’s Inn.” She punched him playfully in the arm. It still hurt, but he always pretended it didn’t.

Riley followed her into the kitchen. “You won’t even know he’s here.”

“Slayer senses, anyone?” Buffy picked up the tea kettle and filled it at the sink. “Anyway, what would we even use a vampire around the house for? I start to think about it and all I get is ‘ew’.”

“I’ll find something for him to do. Buffy, you should see the way they treat this hostile. He’s… well, he’s been a discipline problem, and…”

“Oh, so selling me on this.” Buffy set the kettle on.

“He just has spirit, that’s all. Is that a crime? Should that be punished again and again until someone breaks protocol and dusts him?”

Buffy leaned back against the counter, giving him a pout. “You should just leave the initiative.”

“Buffy…”

She held up her hands. “I can’t believe you’re asking me to take in a vampire like it’s a lost puppy.”

“If you could see…”

“I don’t want to.” She sighed and rubbed her eyes. “Okay. Okay, you have permission and all that… we’ll… try it out, I guess.”

Riley stepped forward to hug her, but she pushed him back. “You won’t regret this.”

“I already do. If it tries to eat someone, the chip malfunctions, or… or god, if it pees on the carpet, I’m dusting it.”

“Believe me, that would be humane.”

Buffy scowled again, and he feared the whole “leave the initiative” argument was going to start again, so he kissed her and said, “How about I make us something to eat?”

She smiled. “Evil man, placating me with your ability to fry.”

Buffy made her tea and Riley made cheese sandwiches, and they were a happy, comfortable couple again.

But the next part – actually bringing 17 home – that was going to be the real challenge, Riley realized, and so he didn’t have much appetite for his sandwich.

***

Spike watched his bare feet slapping the treadmill under him. His wrists were cuffed to the bar at the front of the machine. This was the Initiative’s idea of physical therapy – chain you to a treadmill and make you run all-out for hours. His only goal was not to lose his footing and end up dragging. Christ, but that hurt. So he kept his feet swinging forward, head hanging down to watch because there was nothing else to do.

They liked him tired out. Sick bastards. He was getting enough exercise, ta very much, just trying to keep the trainer’s hands off him. Never mind the extra-curricular ‘punishments’.

He didn’t’ know how long he’d been running, but he was reaching the point where he couldn’t feel anything from the waist down and his legs flopped and rolled in strange ways, his feet hitting sometimes on their tops, their sides. It was about time for one of the sick fucks to abruptly cut off the treadmill and laugh as he crashed helplessly.

Or they’d forgotten again and soon he would have no choice but to let his legs get abraded as he hung from his bloody wrists.

He recovered from a stumble and was just about convinced he wouldn’t make it past another when, to his surprise, the treadmill gradually slowed to a stop.

He leaned his arms, and as much of his weight as he could, on the support bar.

“Get some clothes on him,” an irritated voice said.

“Come on, Riley, why? He’ll only get ‘em dirty.”

“Just do it.”

Rough hands pushed Spike out of the way and undid the handcuffs. His legs instantly folded like limp spaghetti.

Now it would start. He picked himself up on his arms, prepared to crawl away if that was his only option.

Pale blue, thin fabric hit him in the face. “You heard the man, 17. Get dressed.”

It had been months since they’d last let him put on the skimpy scrubs they let the ‘hostiles’ wear when their own clothes had been destroyed, or just taken. His hands shook and he tried not to feel grateful as he hurriedly pulled them on. He had trouble with the pants as his legs wouldn’t do what he wanted them to, but at last he got them on.

The man standing over him when he looked up was none other than Riley Finn, who he knew was a higher-ranking soldier, and a bit of a softy. Still, high rank didn’t mean good news. He hoped he wasn’t being taken in for surgery again.

Riley squatted to look him in the eye. “I’m taking you out of here, 17. Out of the base. Behave yourself, and you never have to come back.”

Spike looked at the leash Riley held and sneered. The bastard had better not expect him to be grateful.

Riley turned toward the trainer. “Can’t he talk?”

“Are you kidding? This is one hostile we make sure never misses his vocal cord cutting appointment.”

Riley reached for Spike’s throat. Spike jerked back and snarled at him. Riley frowned. “How long ago was the procedure?”

“You seriously want to talk to that thing?”

“Just answer the question, corporal.”

“Dude, I don’t know. Check the logs. It always heals too damn fast, anyway. I can tell you all it’ll say. It’s all ‘bloody hell!’ and ‘shagging wankers!’” The corporal spoke in a falsetto reminiscent of a Monty Python drag performance. Spike barred his teeth at the wanker.

Riley reached for Spike’s throat again. Spike jerked away, got caught, and struggled, resulting in a chip shock when he banged Riley with his elbow.

Blinking stars, he had no choice but to lie there and feel the collar snap shut.

Riley helped him to his feet, and supported him with an arm around his waist. Not that Spike was asking the over-sized boy scout to do any such thing. Spike slipped his arm the first chance he got, but he only fell to the ground and was quickly gathered up again. Time was he could make it take all day for the wankers to get him from his cell to the training room. Defeated, he just let the loser carry him the rest of the way.

Outside air. He stirred, in shock, hope and memory at the feel and smell of it. Maybe this wasn’t going to be so bad, after all.

“That’s it, boy,” Riley said in a soothing voice as Spike lifted his head to smell the wind coming form the exit.

Spike turned and scowled at Riley. Oh, bugger THAT.

***

The car ride was nice. He did not stick his head out the window like a sodding poodle.

He just really liked the smell of the air, all right?

They pulled up to a quiet suburban home and Spike detected something odd in the air. Something… tasty but worrying. Like a t-bone steak guarded by a rottweiler.

Riley led him out of the car and up to the back porch. A woman stood there, framed in the golden light from the kitchen, her arms crossed and a wooden stake visible in the crook of one elbow.

Spike said, “Oh bloody hell,” but of course no sound came out.

“Spike?” Buffy said. She uncrossed her arms and pointed with her stake. “The vampire you wanted to bring home and… and nurture is SPIKE?”

Riley looked from Spike, who was suddenly very alert, very tense and straining the leash, back to Buffy, “You know each other?”

Buffy rolled her eyes and then turned her back on them. “Don’t you have any vampires who didn’t try to kill me in high school?”

Spike could tell Buffy had given in – and wasn’t it pathetic she wasn’t even a little afraid of him? – but soldier-boy had to drag him after her.

“Is this awkward? I wouldn’t have brought him home if I knew you knew him. I mean… tried to kill you?”

“They’re vampires, Riley, it’s what they do.”

“Don’t condescend like that. You and I both know there’s a difference, emotionally, between vampires in general and one you’ve been attacked by.”

Spike tried, desperately, to get away from the quarreling couple, but the leash was strong, and the chip shocked him for resisting it. He clawed at the floor to pull himself away and just collapsed.

The arguing fell away and he felt a tiny hand on his shoulder. “He’s not really the Spike I knew, anymore.”

“Heh. He’s kinda cute, isn’t he?”

Buffy wrinkled her nose. “I hate his hair.”

I hate you both, Spike thought, and when I get this chip out of my head I will feast on your entrails.

For now, he had to put up with them discussing his sodding hair color (“It’s not like I adored the radioactive blonde look, but the natural brown washes out his features”) as they alternately herded and pushed him into the basement, where he was shackled.

“Sorry, 17, we can’t exactly let you run free,” Riley said as Spike mutely listed adjectives to describe him. “Tomorrow I’ll set the chip to the perimeter of the house.”

Riley must have sensed the thick sarcasm in Spike’s mental reply, because he shrugged apologetically and patted Spike’s bare ankle above the metal shackle.

Spike sneered at him. One soldier boy and a slayer? This would be a cakewalk.

Three days later, Spike had to reassess his opinion. Riley was patient and careful and always seemed to know when Spike was planning something.

At first Spike managed to stubbornly refuse to do the light tasks Riley planned for him – like loading the washing or pulling weeds at night in the garden. (The chip was wired to shock him unconscious if he stepped over the property line, which, he discovered to his annoyance, didn’t extend to the back fence. Fucking suburban zoning.)

When he rebelled by pulling up all the flowers and bushes and leaving the weeds, Riley didn’t punish him, didn’t say anything, just sighed heavily and brought him in for clean-up, a bag of blood, and another boring day locked in the basement.

He didn’t get to pull weeds again for a week, and found himself annoyingly wanting to apologize so he could go outside again. He had enjoyed the small violence of pulling plants up from their roots, the spraying dirt, the smell of outdoor air.

He couldn’t believe, after all those years of torment and abuse he was falling victim to stern kindness.

In the Initiative, he’d been shocked every time he so much as touched his own dick, but he had a hunch Riley had disabled that protocol, and after a very tentative confirmation of that, Spike worked hard to time his wanking so that Riley would come into the basement just as he climaxed.

The first time, Spike about howled with triumph, sure he was going to get a reaction. Riley didn’t even blink. He just stepped around the glob of jizz on the floor and unlocked the shackle as always. “Time for supper,” he said, which is what he always said. When Spike scowled at him and resisted the tug on the leash, Riley just said, “if you don’t want to eat, that’s your business.”

Spike tried being more elaborate about it. At last, he was sprawled in a pose that was somewhat uncomfortable, one hand up his ass, the other stroking his cock, his back bent off the bed, humping at the air. He turned his head and licked his lips as Riley came down the stairs.

Riley stopped in the middle of the room and sighed. “You aren’t showing me anything I haven’t seen before, you know.”

Spike sagged a little in disappointment, but then redoubled his efforts, lifting his hips as far as they could go, then twisting, grinding his shoulders into the flimsy cot.

Riley put his large, warm hand on Spike’s stomach and pressed gently down. “Stop that. You’re going to break the bed.”

Spike waggled his eyebrows and licked his lips.

Riley put both his hands on Spike’s abdomen and pressed down hard. When Spike resisted the chip fired, and soon he was flat on the cot, his cock at half-mast from the pain, his right arm pinned underneath him at an awkward angle.

“I grew up on a cattle ranch,” Riley said. “If you think you’re more bull-headed than a bull, think again.”

Then Riley turned on his heel and calmly walked out of the basement.

Spike pulled his arm free from under himself and sighed in resignation. It seemed like nothing would shake Riley up. And if he couldn’t shake the man’s calm, he couldn’t find a weakness to exploit and escape.

Then, subtle as a twist of smoke, Spike smelled the musky tang of male arousal. His lips curved in a smirk. Oh, he had something to use.

First, he had to play the good boy – which was hard as swallowing glass, but he did it. Had to lure them into a false security. He could tell Riley knew he was up to something the next morning when he meekly got to his feet and held still for the unshackling, and then didn’t immediately wander off and start messing things up.

It was very hard, but he managed to get through the whole day, behaving himself. The ‘he can’t possibly cause trouble doing this’ task of the day was vacuuming, which he found particularly emasculating, and, beside the point, he could think of lots of ways to destroy stuff while pushing around a heavy sucking machine, but he bit his lip and just did the task.

Riley still looked like he was waiting for the other shoe to fall when he took Spike back down to the basement, but Spike bided his time and just let his bare arm brush against Riley’s. Riley paused, and Spike worried he hadn’t been casual enough about it, but then Riley just left.

Rome wasn’t seduced in a day, Spike reminded himself, and set about planning. Having a plan made him feel more free, even as the chains clanked as his foot moved restlessly.

***

The third time Spike “casually” bumped into him while loading the dishwasher, Riley grabbed his arm and dragged him to the far wall. He glanced briefly toward the living room, to make sure Buffy wasn’t around, and then growled, “Stop it. I know what you’re doing and it isn’t going to work.”

Spike batted his eyelashes in a faux innocence so fake it was dirty. And then he ground his hips up against Riley. Riley’s eyelashes fluttered, briefly. Spike grinned in triumph, the tip of his pink tongue peeking out. Riley slammed him harder into the wall. He was breathing hard, their faces just an inch apart.

“Hey, what’s going on?” Buffy called from the next room.

Riley jumped back from Spike, awkwardly. He dropped a hand over his bulging jeans. “N-nothing. Just sev– Spike acting up.”

Buffy strolled in, snagged a banana from the fruit bowl, and gave Spike a significant look while gripping the banana like a stake. “I can _so_ take care of that for you, honey.”

Spike continued to smirk in triumph. Riley pretended to be interested in the fruit bowl as well. “Nothing stake-worthy. Yet.”

“Well, you just let me know when it gets to that point.” Buffy mimed stabbing with the banana. Spike gave her a scowl and she smiled, bouncing off to the living room again.

Riley smacked him, open handed. Spike blinked in surprise.

“Do you want to end up dust? Is that it?”

Spike scowled in response.

Riley slammed the dishwasher shut, then turned back to him, frowning. “You should be able to talk by now.”

Another faux-innocent flutter of eyelashes.

Riley set his fist on his hip. “We’re not going to cut your vocal cords again. You don’t have to hide that they’ve healed.”

Spike’s throat bobbed with a long swallow. With a cough, he said, “Maybe I was saving it for a special occasion.”

“Just… give it up, Spike. This is your life now. Get used to it.”

“I won’t. I’m a vampire, not a housemaid.” Spike kicked over the mop leaning on the wall next to him, just to underscore the point.

Riley patiently picked it back up. “You’d rather go back to splitting your time between reconstructive surgery and the training room floor?”

“Heh.” Spike’s voice was still scratchy from disuse. He licked his lips. “You didn’t save me because of some misplaced farmboy morality. You’re hot for my arse.”

Riley, as if realizing how close they were standing just at that moment, moved awkwardly back. “I’m really not.”

Spike tilted his head back. “How about we ask the missus?”

“Go ahead. She’s not stupid, Spike.” Riley held open the basement door and looked pointedly at Spike until he sighed and trudged down the steps.

Spike heard Buffy and Riley argue clearly through the thin walls. Riley wanted Buffy to take more of a role with training Spike. Buffy felt he was Riley’s responsibility, since Riley had brought him into their home. Then there was some disagreement about a trip Buffy was going to take to see Dawn, and Riley wouldn’t come with because someone had to babysit the vampire.

Spike just loved being discussed like he was a troublesome terrier not quite house-trained. He loved even more when the arguing grew quiet, and then subsided into moans and groans and the rhythmic compression of bedsprings.

Spike jerked off furiously, glaring his hatred at the bare wood ceiling.

The next day, Riley didn’t speak to Spike, and only looked at him if he had to. Spike tried to use his new weapon, his voice, to best advantage. He groaned in exaggerated pleasure over his breakfast bottle of blood. He wolf-whistled when Riley bent to undo the shackle.

Riley let the chain drop with a thunk. “Since you’re so pent up, you can do yard work today.”

“Be still my unbeating heart.” Spike slipped up against Riley. “Don’t think I’m the only one ‘up’,” he said, and let his hand drop down to Riley’s crotch.

Riley shoved him back. He landed half on the cot. “Come on. We’re wasting moonlight.”

Riley tried to sound unaffected, but Spike heard the tension in his voice, and he had felt hardness under those khaki pants. Spike smiled. This was actually starting to be fun.

For three days, Spike found excuses to bend over, to brush against Riley, to stretch in almost impossible ways.

Riley paused slack-jawed when Spike pressed one leg against the wall, his head nestled comfortably beside his knee, and gave a slow wink.

Riley blinked, cleared his throat, and walked back into the house, muttering, “Stop it,” under his breath as he passed Spike.

“It’s all the bending over,” Spike called after him cheerily. “Cramps me up.”

Riley sent Buffy to take Spike back in. He cupped his groin and leered at her. She socked him in the nose and tugged him along with one tiny, super-strong hand.

Not his favorite moment of the day.

The next morning he tried something a little different. He sprawled naked on the cot, one hand behind his head, and just let the other trail up and down his bare skin. He didn’t touch his cock, though it was up and perky, used to a long tradition of morning wanks now.

When the door at the top of the stairs opened, Spike put his fingers in his mouth and laved them thoroughly. He made sure to take long enough that Riley was in the room before he drew them slowly out, and then painted his nipples with the moisture before letting his fingers slide slowly, oh so slowly, along his taut belly down toward the weeping head of his dick.

“Stop it,” Riley said.

“Or what?” asked Spike, sliding his fingers down his cock.

Riley exhaled and inhaled loudly, turned, and stomped back up the steps.

Spike laughed in victory. Then scowled, realizing he wouldn’t be getting breakfast. “Dick,” he muttered, and looked down at his own. “Ah well, waste not, want not.”

***

The days leading up to Buffy’s departure were obviously tense. Spike gleefully did all he could to make matters worse.

Buffy apparently had agreed to take care of feeding and unlocking him for a week, though he doubted Riley had said why he wanted to trade chores.

“That overgrown boy scout cannot be giving you everything you need,” Spike purred.

Buffy had walked in on his usual morning wank and threw a scratchy old army blanket over him. “Less talk, more getting dressed. I have a busy day and lots to get done.”

Spike smirked unconcernedly, but she socked him in the nose, so he decided that maybe he could play along a bit.

He balked when she brought him into the bathroom and he saw a chair set up by the sink, pink boxes and little squeeze bottles all set out. “Bugger this.”

She pushed him forward. “Relax. You like dying your hair.”

“But that’s sodding GIRL hair dye!”

Buffy rolled her eyes and used her super-strength to push him into the chair. “Stop being a big baby.”

“What color is it?” Spike looked with great trepidation at the bottle Buffy picked up.

“As far as you know?” Buffy smirked and turned on the water.

Twenty minutes later, the bathroom was a mess, they were both soaked to the skin, but Spike’s scalp was tingling with setting hair dye that could be pink for all he knew.

“It’s like bathing a cat,” Buffy complained, picking bits of hair off her shirt.

No, Spike wasn’t sad Buffy was going away for a while.

Spike tried to behave himself long enough for her to be gone. Well, mostly. The morning of her departure, he cooed to an irate Riley waiting in the living room, “Come on, mate. Go with your bird. I don’t need a sitter, do I? Lord knows I’ve been taking care of myself.” He let a hand drop to his crotch.

Riley smacked his wrist. “Can you put that thing away for five minutes?”

Spike curled his tongue behind his teeth. “Make me.”

Just then Buffy came bustling down the stairs carrying what looked like her entire wardrobe in luggage.

Riley took a step back from Spike. “Help Buffy with her bags.”

“Uh, no,” Buffy said. “Thanks, but the evil undead watchdog is not touching my things.”

It was kind of cute how she managed to hide two full sized suitcases and a valise behind her back, so Spike did the only sensible thing and grabbed for the shoulder-bag.

There ensued a tumble of cases, some swearing, and a sadly inevitable chip-firing.

“Oh, so helpful,” Buffy muttered, flicking her disarrayed hair out of her face.

Riley gave Spike a glare as he helped Buffy pick up her luggage. Spike sprawled against the lower steps with a satisfied grin.

Spike rightened himself and his clothes as Riley and Buffy said their tearful good-byes outdoors in the sunshine. He ran a hand through his loose curls and mourned, not for the first time, the lack of hair-gel afforded to vampire slaves. (He had already plucked a few hairs and found to his satisfaction that Buffy had not died them pink, but a good, proper blonde. Not that he was grateful.)

Riley returned and Spike pounced on him, wrapping his arms and legs around his thick torso. Riley dumped him on the couch. “Can you give it a rest?”

“C’mon, love. The cat’s away and all that.” Spike drew one bare foot up Riley’s leg.

Riley batted the offending foot away. “Don’t you get it? You’re my _property_.”

Spike leaned back on his elbows. “Yeah, I was in such danger of forgetting that.”

“Then why do you…” Riley groaned and started to pace. “I know, I know. You’re trying to unsettle me. You think all this inappropriate flirting will get me to make a mistake, maybe enough mistakes that you can escape.”

“Well, that, and you’re hot.” Spike shrugged.

Riley turned quickly and dropped his hands onto the couch on either side of Spike. “Is that what you want? You want to be back with the sadists who used you and abused you? To turn me into one of _them_?”

Riley’s eyes were blown with emotion, his breaths hot and quick on Spike’s face. Spike shook his head, solemnly. “Mate, you could never be one of them.”

“You don’t know me that well.”

Riley was still and taut over him, and Spike was perfectly still too, like a rabbit under a hound, but then Spike half-shrugged and relaxed back into the sofa, as though there wasn’t a larger man braced angrily over him. “It’s about power,” Spike said.

Riley straightened. “Exactly. I have all of it. That’s why we can’t – why I can’t…”

“No,” Spike smirked. “You git. It gives me some power over you, making you sweat, making you jump. Do you think I had any power over them? They didn’t even see me. I was just a hole to them.”

At the last words, Spike turned his head away slightly, jaw tightening. That small vulnerability, more than a thousand leers, made Riley’s lust rise. And, damn it, why did he have to keep doing the right thing? This vampire was here, on his couch, because he couldn’t stand watching another creature suffer. So why was he now the one to suffer?

Before he knew he was doing it, Riley was pressed down against Spike, pushing his tongue into a surprisingly receptive mouth. Those amazingly limber legs were over his shoulders and his groin was screaming at him about this annoying layer of fabric that was in the way.

He pulled back, gasping. Spike’s lips were parted and shining. Riley thrust and ground against him. “Is this what you wanted?”

“It’ll do,” Spike replied, distractedly.

Riley just didn’t care anymore what was wrong with this picture. The trousers Spike was wearing where papery thin hospital scrubs and since Riley’s dick informed him that any time spent not pressed against the body beneath him was unacceptable, he simply tore them in half before unzipping his own fly.

The head of his cock caught painfully against Spike’s dry entrance, and he had to pause, grudgingly. He quickly licked two fingers and jammed them in. If Spike minded the rough treatment, he wasn’t saying anything, just panting and watching with wide open eyes. He lifted his hips almost greedily as Riley scissored his fingers against tight muscle.

Two, three more seconds – an eternity – and Riley decided that was enough preparation. He pulled his fingers out and thrust forward. For a painful second, skin dragged against skin and it felt like he wasn’t going in, but then flesh parted. It felt like stabbing, like he had made that channel so tightly gripping him. He sank in until his hips were flush against Spike, and sighed. There was something clean about the cool temperature of the flesh, as though it wasn’t real. The deeper in, the odder that coolness was. He pulled out, the friction tugging, trying to hold him in, and plunged in again. His lips found Spike’s, slack a bit, but he kissed back after a moment.

“Is this what you wanted?” Riley repeated, thrusting hard.

Spike’s face was wrinkled with pain or concentration. “Fuck, you’re huge,” was all he said, through clenched teeth.

Riley closed his eyes on that too open stare, but that was maybe a mistake because then everything was sensation and he couldn’t stop himself from thrusting harder and faster, because each one felt better than the last, so perfect and yet just short of enough. Riley beat himself forward, would have torn his body apart for that perfection, until all too soon he was falling over the edge into an orgasm so intense it brought stars before his eyes and he didn’t even feel himself come down until he was spent, sticky and boneless, on top of something that was boney and shifting uncomfortably.

Oh, right. Spike. Riley pulled out a little too quickly and hissed at the sensation. He staggered back.

Spike kicked away the loose fragments of his trousers and laid back on the couch clad only in the loose-fitting blue scrubs shirt. His hair was tousled and his lips kiss-swollen. A long expanse of muscled belly was exposed, one hand scratching at drying sweat along the join of the thigh. He looked, in short, like innocence and sin mixed together like ice cream and hot fudge.

Riley’s stomach growled.

He tore his gaze away and nearly stumbled, legs cramped and jeans open. He quickly tucked himself away and went to the kitchen. The kitchen of his house. That he lived in with his wife, to whom he was married. And as a married man, had just fucked a vampire, angrily and violently, on the living room couch.

Riley stared a long time at the beer in his hand.

A cough sounded behind him. “You’re not brooding, are you?”

Riley turned to find Spike leaning against the door jamb, arms crossed, amused smirk in place, bare legs and cock swinging softly between them.

Riley popped open the beer and drank a long, deep draught to shake the tight, dry lump from his throat. He gasped for air and said, “This can’t happen again.”

“Aw, give it a few minutes. You’re young yet.”

Riley gave him a scathing look and reached into the fridge, pulling out another beer, which he tossed to Spike.

Spike caught it easily and popped it open. “Good boy,” he said, “I’ll get you trained, yet.”

Riley shook his head, caught between a tear and a chuckle, because he feared that was all too true.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm sorry if it seems to just end. That's how much I suck. I'll have to continue it sometime. (I'm on to your diabolical plan to turn my one-shots into epic fics, Sue!)


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